ASA's Future

[Erlanger]

With all the future growth in the 100+ seat market, and the 50 seats on the decline, why would ASA buy another 50 seat airline? Not to mention an airline with ALOT of 50's. Something does not add up. Maybe scope is crashing in the future.

Skywest, Inc or we can say ASA bought XJet because; 1) They believe that inspite of what mainline guys say, that scope will be relaxed even more. UAL/CAL really wants 90 seaters. That I've heard from Jerry Atkin and he believes that the pilots will go for it when a new contract is offered. At the very least the UAL scope in affect won't change for the worst. 2) Skywest Inc. believes that after the UAL/CAL merger is finalized, XJet would be a threat to Skywest's UAL flying and/or that someone else may try to buy them. Could Republic have made a bid for them in the future?

BTW, the reason Skywest, Inc bought ASA was as Jerry Atkin said, was to protect the DAL flying that Skywest already had. Jerry was worried that someone else might buy ASA and pull flying away from Skywest. For Skywest/ASA to maintain super regional status they need to hold the monopoly on mainline flying. You know, just like the U.S. having to do what it takes to maintain it's super power status in the world.

 

[Erlanger]

You can pretty much bet that scope has already been addressed and or dropped. Otherwise, I doubt ASA would invest that much time, effort and money. You don't really think Continental was going to be the only airline with no RJ's bigger than 50 seats...did you?

I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing, I'm just sayin'....

Exactly right. Reference my post above.

 

[Speedtape]

I had recurrent ground recently. SH had some intersting charts regarding the future of RJ's. Obviously the 50 seater's will shrink a good deal. There is growth in the 70/90 market. However, the largest growth in 2014 will be 100-125 seat aircraft.

Regarding scope with Delta, I'm not sure how that would work. Delta pilots want the flying whereas management would rather contract it out for a cheaper rate. Unless Delta management offers a nice pay raise to relieve scope, I don't know how this is possible.

SH did not rule out ASA buying a branded airline, such as AirTran, Alaska, Jetblue, or Virgin. I never thought that would even be a possibility. I guess with enough cash, anything is possible. Could you imagine merging with "AirTran"? Happy ASA pilots with p'd off AirTran pilots.

Sounds like ASA is really looking at the big picture and elected not to buy TSA/Compass/Mesaba/Pinnacle. I personally think they are ready to buy off Mesa assets. Who knows, maybe a bigger branded airline.

Thoughts?

With all due respect, your information source has more holes than swiss cheese! Do you know what a snake oil salesman is?

 

[Speedtape]

Originally Posted by crj57
I have decided that I will never again drink from a water fountain at the airport, or at any airport. I cannot risk catching whatever kind of unfortunate mental damage is going around.

Apparently, you have not drank from the fountain of wisdom either? But then again, would it really make a difference?

 

[Speedtape]

You can pretty much bet that scope has already been addressed and or dropped. Otherwise, I doubt ASA would invest that much time, effort and money. You don't really think Continental was going to be the only airline with no RJ's bigger than 50 seats...did you?

I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing, I'm just sayin'....

Me thinks you are on to something!

 

[asayankee]

The planes are leased From Continental and the sale comes along with the signing of a new 10 year contract to fly them. There is risk in the 50-seat market... But not when you have them locked into a long term contract.

 

[tiffanytaylor]

I hope SkyWest buys Comair.

 

[10nCLR]

I hope SkyWest buys Comair.

ewwww!!! yuck, don't want to go through another process of repairing an airline. Oh, but wait!! They were quite good at it the last time. Now that airline is rebranding itself and merging with another large regional airline. hmmm. Question is, which one of the five will be of greatest value- Air Wisconsin which operates 70 aircraft, Comair w/120, PSA w/49, Horizon w/58 and American Eagle w/282.
Question 2. How do you operate to all 50 states? You can't unless you buy Alaska Airlines along with Horizon.